@ Gizzo, #20: That same spread in Arizona would be a lot more. It's the access to water thing, where it regularly falls from the sky, land prices for rural "paradises" seem to go down. Hawaii excluded, of course. Lots of folks that retired from our Laughlin powerplant moved to the Midwest/Mideast? Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma, Georgia, etc. for that very reason. No irrigation, belly high grass, trees, natural gas for heat in the winter, lots of game. A really nice place to land if you don't have to get up & go to work everyday. A bit of A/C for the humid summers, wood heat in the winter, a 5 acre pond to bring in the game & raise catfish, bass, bluegill & crappie in. 2-5 cows for meat, maybe 2 cows per acre there instead of the 20-50 acres per cow in Arizona. When the roads are iced up or maybe just mudbogs, you stay home & fiddle in the garage. If "pretty" isn't a priority for you, all that can be done at a much lower rate. Jump on the next flight over & spend a few weeks tootling around, your money is good here. 
Agreed. I have something somewhat similar: 11 acres, 1 acre stocked pond, old dairy barn with lean-to converted to shop on the back. Sheep, horses, donkeys, chickens, and ducks (no cows, no goats). For what it's worth, chickens are way easier to raise and process than cows, and ducks are easier than chickens. Great source of both eggs and meat (although SWMBO will not allow anything we feed to be eaten, so ours are just lawn ornaments and pets). If I had a 53 acre parcel, I'd skip right past cows and go straight to Bison. One male, a couple of cows, save two calves for butchering at the end of the season, sell the rest off, and you'd be set for meat for nearly a year.
I'm stunned that that 53 acre estate in VA is only $600K. That is only marginally more than I paid for my 11 acres, and I bought it when the market was at the trough (2014). Just as a point of reference, ag acreage in most of the Midwest goes for ~$10K per acre, not including buildings and infrastructure. I'm stunned that it wouldn't be more in Virginia.
One add'l note for anyone seriously considering this path: make sure you understand taxation in the jurisdiction where you purchase, particularly property taxes. From what I understand, many eastern states like MD, VA, DE, CT, MA tax EVERYTHING annually that you own as property, not just the real estate. So if you bring in a fleet of hobby vehicles or farm equipment, it all gets taxed. Most states only tax at the time of purchase, with a nominal "road tax" as part of annual registration. Not so in the east.
On the issue of real estate taxes, I highly advise that you research public policy with respect to taxation, expansion, and development. Here in IL, housing values are flat or declining because they keep raising property tax by double digit percentages year over year. I'm zoned ag, so I'm somewhat protected from the direct impact of high taxes. But the declining property taxes of everyone else who are zoned residential due to over-taxation affects my property value too.
The old addage about real estate being a great investment doesn't apply here because the exhorbitant real estate taxes artificially surpress appreciation of property values. In other words, don't buy in IL. If it weren't for SWMBOs recalcitrance, I'd already be in Missouri. Consider that a pro tip.
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